


Amen

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s11e02 Form and Void, Gen, Headspace, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5021368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You wake every day with a prayer on your lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amen

You wake every day with a prayer on your lips.

You pray for patience, sometimes, or for peace, or simply for the strength to get out of bed. Today, you’re praying you’re as smart as you think you are: smart enough to find a cure.

You build a complex trap and a taser out of bits and pieces from a hardware store. It’s easy compared to decades of throwing a life together out of nothing but spare parts.

You’re trying to save the guy, so of course he throws it all back in your face the first chance he gets. “If you were smart,” he says, “you’d put a bullet in me...and then eat one yourself.”

If you were really smart, you wouldn’t try so hard to save everyone, including yourself.

Especially not yourself.

\--

He dies before you even manage to learn his name.

“Bite me,” he had said, when you asked.

The thing is, you’re tired of feeling like you always have your teeth at everyone’s throat, including your own. Your whole life is a threat: it’s them or your brother. It’s you or your brother.

And every time you had the choice, you always chose your brother.

\--

Billie doesn’t scare you as much as she should.

She tries to cut you to your core by telling you you’re unclean, but it doesn’t sting like it used to. After all, it’s not like you haven’t been telling yourself that for years. It isn’t news; it’s just another confirmation.

The real kicker, though, is when she tries to intimidate you with the promise of the Empty. You know it’s supposed to be a threat, but it sounds like exactly what you’ve been hoping for.

It sounds like a godsend.

When you pray, the first name on your lips is Dean’s. You pray for him before you pray for anyone else, already breaking your promise to yourself.

You do get around to them, eventually. To asking for hope, no matter the personal cost.

You think this is you asking for help, but it’s just another way of asking for oblivion.

\--

It startles you, when the vision comes.

For a few vivid seconds, you’re back in the cage, back with the fire beneath your feet and the hooks in your skin and the despair in your heart. In that moment, hell is the only thing that’s real.

This is exactly how fucked up you are: you relive your torture in stunning clarity and think it’s a sign from God.

Maybe you need to believe it is, though. That your pain means something; that your pain isn’t simply pain for its own sake. That even if it doesn’t mean something for you, at least it can for Dean, for all the innocent people dying because of you.

If nothing else, it means someone is listening.

\--

Ever since hell, you catch yourself wondering if things are real.

Even after you were cured, you kept doing it, kept using other people to dispel your own doubts. You followed their gazes, absorbed their words, gauged their reactions. You built your reality up on a foundation of other people’s convictions.

You’re unclean. You know this even though you hear your own voice telling you you’re fine. After all, if other people can see it, too, it means you’re not just imagining it.

You’re smart, and that’s what helps you figure it out.

\--

When you hold that holy fire to your face, you aren’t afraid.

You’re in pain, sure, but that’s nothing new. Fear, though? You’re long past that. After all, it wouldn't be the first time your life has gone up in flames.

You get to work curing others as soon as you can, cleansing them in a way you will never be cleansed. You know you’re never going to be able to buy your salvation, but you’re going to buy it for the world, one person at a time.

And if all it costs is yourself? Well.

So be it.


End file.
